Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:49 pm on 29 September 2020.
Health Minister, the COVID-19 pandemic has now claimed over a million people's lives across the world, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. In the United Kingdom, the current death toll with coronavirus is 57,860, and in Wales, our death toll is 1,612. These numbers represent human beings—someone's mother, someone's father, someone's brother and someone's sister. As the Member of the Senedd for Islwyn, with its large cluster of Valleys communities that sit within the Caerphilly County Borough Council authority, I welcome the very prompt action the Welsh Government has taken in September, when we saw the number of positive tests rise rapidly. The localised coronavirus restrictions are tough for us all. Humans need to socialise and to live our precious lives in freedom. However, we face a public health crisis not seen in a century. We are our brothers and sisters' keepers, and I want to thank all those across Islwyn who diligently follow the restrictions and who make daily sacrifices to do so.
Health Minister, would you agree with me that Islwyn residents, who are going the distance, obeying the restrictions and making those sacrifices are, firstly, making a difference? Prior to these restrictions, Caerphilly county borough had the highest rate in case rises in Wales, and now has one of the fastest falling, throughout the United Kingdom, down to 50.3 cases per 100,000 people, after more than two weeks in lockdown, and this matters. And to those deniers who think it does not, I refer you to the health professionals invested in your health, your well-being, those who you go to on matters of life and death. And I know that the health Minister—